Flogging A Dead Zebra.
If you’ve ever heard ‘Our Love Will Still Be There’ by The Troggs from way back in 1966 then you’ll know precisely the sound I’m going to write about. I’ve looked high and low (and still have far to go) to find an effect that mimics the oddly desirable sound a fuzzbox with a dying battery makes. Luckily with the seemingly endless list of fuzzes out there I’ll find one, in the mean time I’ve spent peanuts on a very clever and very tiny box by UK effect merchants Dead Zebra FX.
As it says on the tin, the dead battery simulator controls the voltage received by the pedals. The single control knob takes the current from a full 9v down to a rolling blackout level of 4.5v. This gradual ‘starving’ of the effect yields some pretty quirky sounds not just from fuzz/OD/distortions but from anything else you can throw at it effects-wise. I say anything, I mean anything analog as digital pedals just up sticks and leave when receiving anything less than what they need. If you take a regular Boss adaptor and daisy chain with the Dead Zebra DB between them you can easily dial in that velcro-like quick decaying fuzz. The lack of voltage makes it feel like you’re playing with a noise gate in the chain, this will affect your playing dynamics much like an enveope filter would, whereby you need to ‘open’ the gate to allow sound through.
I would recommend that when using this that a clean booster is perhaps added somewhere along your signal chain as your carefully honed unity gain control settings are shot to shinola as the voltage is decreased. Other than that and the distaste for all things digital no FX fiends box of tricks should be without a Dead Zebra.
